Play Me A Memory
by Reshante
Summary: Two Titans walk into a jazz bar and proceed to have sometimes-meaningful conversation, while the lounge singer hums away in the background. Oneshot; Robin/Raven. Now potentially a collection!
1. Chapter 1

**title:** Play Me A Memory

**fandom; pairing:** Teen Titans; Robin/Raven

**rating: **PG

**summary:** Two Titans walk into a (jazz) bar. No, really. ... well, sort of.

**notes:** Inspired by a recent binge on old jazz/lounge classics, and late-night IM conversations. Beta'd by the wonderful **Astarael00**; any remaining errors are entirely my own. Since does not allow the use of lyrics, I have removed them from this version; the original, lyrics-included version in located on my LJ writing journal here: http: //community .livejournal. com/ verbiography/ 3825. html (remove spacing).

**disclaimer:** _Moon River_ belongs to the collective geniuses of Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini, _Moondance_ to Van Morrison, and _Teen Titans_ to DC and Cartoon Network. Capiche? Good. (Oh, and the title is taken from _Piano Man_ lyrics.)

****

The lights are soft and dim, painting the lounge in molten shades of orange, yellow, and blue that melt dreamily into the darkness and each other. A low buzz of conversation fills the room, punctuated by occasional sounds of laughter, and a toast here and there. Permeating the hum of socialization and good business is the velvet-smoke voice of the solo singer as she croons _Moon River_ lovingly into the microphone, to the accompaniment of a piano, saxophone, and double bass ensemble.

The Wednesday night crowd at the Jupiter Jazz club-cum-bar is more subdued than its weekend incarnations, but the cosily small club is still relatively packed with professionals and students alike looking for a soothing place for some mid-week unwinding. It is a hidden gem tucked between an old antique bookshop and a dusty middle-age women's clothing store near the fringe of Jump's downtown core, and Jupiter Jazz is a favourite among those who are looking for a place to enjoy a night out with friends or colleagues without the risks of permanent hearing loss or epileptic fits a rave nightclub presented. Plus, the Jupiter offers an excellent array of blues, jazz, and lounge for those who simply wish to enjoy a peaceful evening in their own company and good music.

Which may explain why Raven is currently seated atop one of the round, red backless barstools beside the bar counter, nursing a small mug of wild raspberry tea in her hands. Why Robin is similarly seated on an identical stool to her immediate right is somewhat more of an unanswered question.

When Raven thinks about it, she's not really quite sure how the two of them ended up here either; all she knows is that, somewhere in the course of the Titans being given a night off to themselves (though they remained, naturally, on call to any disruptions), the Jupiter became a kind of tradition for the two of them. After a particularly heated encounter with Plasmus and Johnny Rancid earlier in the day, the others had opted to go to out shopping to relieve off some stress; Beast Boy wanted to check out the latest video games, Cyborg had been meaning to buy a new set of tire rims for the T-Car for a while, and Starfire never missed out on the opportunity to purchase more hair ornaments and nail polish. Which left Robin and Raven, who had looked at each other and decided that a night out at the shopping mall wasn't exactly their idea of relaxing. Before she knew it, they were standing at the entrance of the Jupiter and pushing open the door. (Actually, Robin held it for her, but why quibble the details?)

Neither of them is old enough to drink yet, but the bartender accommodates her order for tea and his for coffee with an easy smile; this isn't the first time either of them have been here, after all, whether in each other's company or not. And despite dressing civilian for the occasion, Robin is still easily identifiable by the mask he refuses to leave behind and Raven's chakra stone, if not her hair colour, ensures that she isn't mistaken for just another rebellious teenage girl.

"We found him in the basement—what is it, by the way, with evil mad scientists and basement lairs?—and we dealt with all his failed chimera experiments before Batman finally knocked him out and handcuffed him to the pipes for the police." Robin is reminiscing on one of his old escapades back in Gotham, and expounding it aloud for her benefit.

"Fascinating," she professes, a hint of a drawl in her otherwise-perfect deadpan.

He cocks his head to look askew at her, a strange half-contemplative, half-wistful smile on his lips. The lights by the counter are slightly brighter than the rest of the bar, hanging like pinpricks of falling stars from the ceiling. It illuminates her face unevenly, highlighting the curve of her cheekbones and brow, but accentuating the shadows on the hoods on her eyes and the dip of her lips.

She notices his gaze and lifts an eyebrow in turn. "What?"

Her question seems to visibly shake him from whatever reverie he'd been in, prompting the small strange smile to change to a grin. "Just looking," he answers truthfully.

Raven swivels her stool so that her body is facing his at an angle; the move throws the light contours on her face off and her chakra stone appears almost liquid as the light infuses it with warm, jewelled tones. "Looking at what?" From any other girl, the question might have been coy, on the brink of flirtatious; from Raven, it is merely perplexity laced with a touch of self-consciousness.

"You look different from when the Titans first formed."

"It _has_ been over six years since then," she reminds him, her brow creasing faintly in perplexity over the thread of the conversation.

Robin laughs softly and shakes his head once. "But you haven't changed at all."

In the background, the singer's husky voice lingers and fades, and the ensemble strikes the opening chords of Van Morrison's _Moondance_.

"I hope you realize how much of a contradiction that is."

The low, sultry voice begins anew, drifting out over the bar as the double bass picks up the beat in deep, thrumming pizzicato notes.

"No, it's not," he replies easily.

Cocking his head again, that strange look re-enters his eyes; he just looks at her in silence for a minute as she grows increasingly unsettled under the weight of his scrutiny. Nevertheless, Raven doesn't back down from the stare and, just as she's about to snap and demand an explanation, he speaks again. "But that's not true either," he admits. "You have changed since we first met."

"We all have."

That earns her one of his effortlessly knee-buckling smiles as he acknowledges her assertion. "True, but not as much as you, Raven." At her uncertainty-narrowed eyes, he hastens to add, "It's not a bad thing. After all, you trust us more now, don't you? It's a good thing." He finishes with all of his signature confidence and flashes her another grin.

She averts her eyes at last, pushing her feet against the counter lightly to swivel her seat back. She takes a sip of her now-lukewarm tea to hide the sudden heat in her cheeks, but Robin catches the faint dusting of rose across the top of her cheekbones under the gentle halogen glow. Wisely, he says nothing and chooses, instead, to return to his own drink. The silence is filled by the husky swell of the singer.

Robin hides his smile in the rim of his own mug.

"It is a good thing," she murmurs then, at first so quietly that he isn't sure if he is meant to hear, and then louder as she turns to face him again. "It is a good thing. And I know I don't say this enough, but …" Here, she smiles—just a little curve of her lips and a softening of her eyes, but it's as radiant as any full-blown beam and, to him, it puts the vivid profile spotlight trained on the crooning starlet onstage to shame. "I am grateful to you—all of you. I thank Azar all the time that I met you all."

He doesn't have to think twice before reaching out to place a warm, ungloved hand on her lower arm. Such gestures are common between the two of them now, though it is usually he who initiates the touch and he usually refrains when the others are around for her sake. When they are alone, however, these little subtle contacts are natural, comfortable even, and if Raven notices the slightly more intimate positioning of his hand on her arm rather than her shoulder, she makes no mention of it. "I wish I'd had the chance to meet her," he says sincerely.

He's rewarded with a minute tug upwards of her smile. "She would have liked you." It is unclear from her tone whether she means that in regards to the Titans as a whole, or to him specifically. Perhaps it is on purpose; Robin doesn't know, but he doesn't dwell too much on it. "Arella—" She catches herself, pauses briefly, then continues, "Mother would have too."

A curious warmth wells up inside him and suffuses his body as he grins at her, lighting up like the Christmas tree she sometimes teased him of basing his uniform on. At the sight of it, Raven casts her eyes downward slightly, uneasy at being the recipient of so open a show of emotion. She doesn't understand that she deserves it, deserves it more than any of the other half-dozen girls who are currently eyeing Robin with undisguised appreciation and herself with more than a little envy. This minor hitch does not deter Robin, however, as she has yet to pull her arm away from where his hand rests. He lifts it slightly only to place light, strong fingers gently at her wrist; he watches with interest as her eyes flicker to follow the movement, and then, encouraged when she still does not disengage from the contact, he moves to cover her smaller hand with his.

Now Raven does react, jerking slightly, though not enough to extricate her hand, and her eyes fly up to meet his. Not willing to give her the chance to change her mind about freeing her appendage, Robin grins at her questioning stare, and closes his hand around hers solidly, sliding out of his seat and pulling her up with him. He manages to surprise her, because Raven allows herself to be dragged along for a minute before she realizes that he is leading them toward the small patch of dance floor in the middle of the club where silhouettes of several couples can be seen swaying and twirling to the beat of the music.

"Robin," she begins with a warning edge in her voice as she digs her heels in in protest.

He interrupts before she can object in earnest. "You have to dance to this one," he insists as the band picks up _Moondance_ once again from the top. "Just one," he pleads and promises at the same time. "Please?"

It's the "please" that undoes her. Doubt and apprehension still flutter inside her chest, but Raven sighs and nods; his resulting smile is almost enough to make her not regret her moment of weakness. As it is, she follows after him with only minimal reluctance, her hand still enclosed firmly in his.

Robin brings them to the very fringe of the floorspace and no further, well-aware of the limits of her comfort zone and disinclined to push further than he already has—a consideration that Raven is grateful for. The singer has just eased smoothly into the opening lines of the song again.

Robin, still holding her right hand, flexes so that their fingers are entwined and brings his left hand up to rest lightly on the small of her back. Raven is less certain what to do with her free hand and she eventually opts for settling it, with some awkwardness, on his shoulder. From the small encouraging smile he gives her, she made the right decision.

Slowly but steadily, he coaxes her to sway languidly with the slower rhythm he manages to find in the upbeat jazz measures.

They stay like that; two teen superheroes in civilian clothing, dancing gently on the periphery of the main group to the languorous, liquid honey-caramel tones of the lounge singer's crooning. And when the song begins to wind down, Robin keeps his promise and lets her go, and they walk back to the bar together, both a little colder without the proximity of the other's body heat.

Raven chalks it and the tight, coiled feeling of _something_ in her stomach up to a mild lingering discomfort.

Robin's eyes are thoughtful behind his mask, and he has no illusions as to the similar tightening in his chest.

They finish up their respective beverages, which had been warmed for them by the bartender while they were on the dance floor, pay, and bid the man a good night. The jazz cadences escape and follow them out into the warm September night as they make their way back to Titan's Tower side by side.

****

**Endnotes:** A re-foray (if that is a word; Word is telling me it is not) into an old, but beloved fandom of mine and definitely a tentative re-entrance into . Reviews/thoughts/comments shall be doted on. Concrit is always appreciated as an ever-developing writer; flames on my pairing of choice will be laughed at, especially since you've read all the way through to here already. Oh, and many bonus points to anyone who recognizes the source for the Jupiter Jazz bar title. X3


	2. Chapter 2

**title:** Play Me A Memory (ii)

**rating: **PG-13 for a passing mention of violence and death

**summary:** Two Titans walk into a (jazz) bar. No, really. ... well, sort of. With added alcohol this time and angst, which every jazz story needs eventually.

**notes:** Unbeta'd, so edits, what have you would be appreciated. I didn't actually plan on this becoming a series, but once in a while, things hit me over the head and this was one of them. We'll see if it continues to beat me into making it a full-fledged one-shot anthology or not. XD

**disclaimer:** Don't own any of the songs referenced or _Teen Titans_.

****

No one has seen Robin since they returned from the case. Granted, it is not unheard of for him to hole himself away in his study for days on end, but he is not to be found there today. In fact, their team leader is nowhere in Titans Tower at all, and, given the circumstances of the day they've all just had, it is more than a little worrying to the Titans that they seem to have lost their leader somewhere along the way from the police station back to the island.

After hours of searching, they give up; Robin would return when he was ready and none of them have any doubts that, should an emergency arise, he would be the first one on the scene. None of the Titans notice Raven quietly slipping away as they call it a night, and each return to their respective rooms and their own thoughts.

She has a sneaking suspicion of where she might find their wayward leader.

Tonight, the Jupiter Jazz is louder, which is not surprising considering it is the cusp of the weekend. The band is playing _West End Blues_. Raven finds him seated at the bar, fingers resting with deceptive lightness on the sides of his tumbler. It is filled halfway with a dark golden liquid that Raven thinks might be whiskey, but she isn't exactly an expert on liquor differentiation. He must hear her approach, or feel it through their strange mental bond, since he does not startle or even look at her when she reaches his shoulder and speaks.

"We're not legal yet." She says it like she might comment on the weather: without inflection or expectations.

Robin takes a sip, makes a face, and then looks up at her with blue eyes that are just beginning to attain the edges of that alcohol-induced glaze. If she is surprised that he's not wearing his mask, Raven does a very good job of hiding it. And she _is_ surprised, but only because she is still unused to seeing his bare eyes and even less accustomed to seeing them bitter and pained. But of course, it would not do for Robin, teen superhero and beloved city champion, to be seen flagrantly getting hammered by himself in a bar—underage, no less.

"Ro—" She checks herself; complete civilian cover this time around, Raven reminds herself. She resists the urge to give the Gatsby cap concealing her conspicuous hair and even more conspicuous chakra stone a self-conscious tug. "Richard. What are you doing?"

"Killing my liver," he replies, his words remarkably clear despite the sharp tang of alcohol she can smell on him now that she is closer. "Care to join me?"

"Neither of us are 21," she reminds him.

His eyes blaze with a sudden intensity. "I saw a little girl die today while her mother watched. I think I can handle a grown-up thing like alcohol."

Raven stares at him, violet eyes reflecting all the sadness that does not show up on her face. He looks away after a minute, turning back to his drink, tension wound tight in his hunched shoulders. Her hand hovers over his clenched back for a long second, but Raven eventually lets it fall back to her side, slumping a bit in her sapphire-blue cardigan. She takes the empty seat beside him, orders a Darjeeling and a glass of water for Robin, and the two of them sit there in heavy silence as the soft jazz strains drift around them, circling overhead like pale streams of opium-blue smoke.

"There was nothing you could have done," she says at last, quietly. Raven knows that Robin is aware of that, deep down, but perhaps he needs to hear it said aloud before he can admit it to himself.

"We could have been faster. _I_ could have been faster."

"You're right; you could have been." It hurts her to see him visibly flinch at the words, but Raven continues with only the slightest hitch, "And I could have teleported instead of riding in the T-Car. Starfire could have flown faster instead of keeping pace with the T-Car; Cyborg could have driven faster—the T-Car is faster than your R-Cycle and you know it." She speaks low, trusting the music to make their conversation inaudible to all but themselves. "Beast Boy could have turned into a cheetah, a falcon. We can't know everything—"

"Why not?" he demands. "We _should_."

"Coulda, shoulda, woulda," she replies without humour, though it prompts him to lift increasingly-bleary eyes to stare at her rare usage of such colloquial terms. "But we didn't, because we_ didn't know_. And we couldn't have; it was a standard bank robbery. There was no way for us to predict that he was as unstable as he was and that he would fire indiscriminately into the crowd."

Robin is silent, but the whiteness of his knuckles around his tumbler is telling enough on its own, and Raven is afraid that if he grips any harder, the glass will splinter and crack under the pressure. In fact, he remains quiet for so long that when he finally speaks, voice pitched low and rough, she almost jumps. "She was so young. Six, tops." Raven knows from the hysterical statement taken from the girl's mother afterwards, which she attended with Cyborg after Robin disappeared, that the girl was, in fact, turning six later that month; her name was Amelie. She does not share that with Robin; now is not the right time. "And her mother—" His voice finally chokes off, thick with the tears that he has not yet allowed himself to indulge in.

"There was nothing we could have—"

"_Stop_ saying that!"

"I'm going to say it until you listen to me, Richard," she says evenly, unmoving in the face of his snarl.

"You say it so easily, like you don't even care. Like seeing her die out there today with that psychopath's bullet in her chest didn't faze you at all," he accuses angrily, his mouth reacting before his brain has the chance to. He realizes his mistake a second too late; the words are already out.

The effect on Raven is immediate and marked; her expression shuts down, mouth forming a thin, taut line, and her eyes cold enough to singlehandedly stop global warming. She knows that he is only looking for a place to lash out, to direct the chaotic cacophony of emotions she can feel raging inside him, but the remark was far out of line, especially given what Robin alone knows of her. And Raven is not nearly noble enough to forgive it, even considering his current half-inebriated state. She is here to try to help him with his pain, not to provide an outlet for his self-loathing. She tells him as much. "I came here to find you because you're my friend, Richard. If you want a verbal punching bag, I suggest you look elsewhere. I have enough to deal with on my own without putting my mind under your emotional assault; I am not going to deal with verbal abuse on top of that." Her own grief and feelings of helplessness already threaten to consume her precious control as it is, and by all rights, Raven should be in her room fighting the awning darkness with hours of meditation instead of sitting here in a packed bar, full of unrestrained emotional auras and exposing herself to Robin's inner turmoil.

His frustration urges him to tell her that he didn't ask for her to come looking for him in the first place, but Robin is not one to make the same mistake twice (at least not in such quick succession) and he forces himself to tamp down the self-fury before he speaks again. "No, that's not what I – sorry, that was out of line. But it never gets easier." The last words come out an anguished whisper beneath the piano's mourning cadenza.

"It shouldn't," she replies just as softly. "The pain never gets better; sometimes we just get better at dealing with it. It means you're still human; that fighting monsters hasn't turned you into one."

"If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Raven isn't surprised that Robin recognized the reference at once, even half-inebriated as he is. She doesn't reply immediately, both allowing him time to reflect (with another grimaced sip of his drink) and taking time to choose her own words carefully. "So let it," she says at last, taking a sip of her own tea. She is satisfied that his intervals between sips have increased as he focuses in on their conversation instead of his own internal abyss—that blackness Raven knows only too well, and knows that Robin (as well as his mentor) carries heavily at all times as well.

He is silent, so she carries on, swivelling her stool in order to fix his profile with her steady gaze. "There is only something to fear if you have something to hide; if you believe there something that will call to it inside you. Richard…" There is that urge to reach out to him again, but she refrains as she always does, settling instead for pushing the glass of water toward him. "You have nothing to be ashamed of; you have nothing to fear from the abyss. Let it look if it wants; let it see what it is like in the light and be shamed itself."

Another tableau of silence.

"Besides, don't tell me you're content to lose to a staring contest with the metaphorical manifestation of a madman's depression." Raven is gratified by the smile that quirks at Robin's lips at her attempt at flippant humour.

"I thought Nietzche was a genius."

Encouraged by his response, Raven continues playing the part, giving a slight sniff and gesturing vaguely with her mug. "Genius, madman; it's a fine line."

"Just like between vigilante and villain, huh."

Her heart drops momentarily at Robin's remark; she is just about worn out on ideas of how to get him out of his funk, and her own abyss is growing wider every second she delays her meditation regimen. Then, like a small miracle, Robin pushes his half-empty tumbler to the side and reaches for the glass of water. The fluttering despair drains from her with a long exhale, the breath out like the expulsion of a lungful of fear and desperation, and the breath in tasting like cool relief. If Robin notices the brief glow around her mug, he doesn't comment as he lifts the glass to his lips and drains it.

When he's finished and turns to her, Raven is already as composed as always, though she allows some of the relief to course through her until it runs itself dry. "With this entire conversation, I'll be surprised if RedX doesn't come calling soon."

She matches his slight smirk. "I'm surprised we haven't the call already, with you tempting fate like that."

His gaze flickers to the mug in her hands briefly before catching her eyes again with his. There is still grief imprinted sharply there and mourning swirling in his aura, but the bitterness and anger is no longer overwhelming. It's still there, but under control, and Raven knows Robin can begin his own coping process now.

She allows her own grief and regret at the day's tragedy to reflect in her gaze for a moment. Placing her mug on the counter, she reaches out to take the tumbler he'd set aside and, like a ritual, tips it back and swallows with a grimace as the liquor burns its way down her throat. Out of her peripheral vision, she sees Robin's eyes widen in surprise, and then, as understanding sets in, soften into something like amusement, and something like gratitude.

"And you lecture_ me_, Rachel."

She stands, and almost immediately regrets her rash decision as she wobbles a little, head swirling. And she thinks that it isn't fair when Robin, as sturdy as ever after Azar knew how many drinks, steadies her from behind and then has the gall to laugh softly in her ear.

Her feet firmly planted now, Raven pulls away and directs a half-hearted scowl at him. "Can we go home now?"

"I think we'd better," he replies easily, the half-glare gliding off him like water off a particularly cheeky and death-defying duck. "Before I have to carry you back."

Raven decides that she is in a generous mood and will thus spare him the obligatory smack on the head… especially given that she cannot be one hundred percent certain she won't wobble if she does so. Besides, Robin is chuckling (granted at _her_, but she decides to overlook that magnanimously as well), so she considers the mission accomplished.

And if he insists on seeing her to her room after they make it back to the Tower ("So you don't fall over a chair and kill yourself," he says, "I would feel responsible." To which she retorts, "Right, so I don't fall over an _invisible_ chair in the empty halls."), she allows it and considers the mug of tea he brings around a few minutes later a token of his thanks for her hard work in dealing with his pigheadedness.

He laughs again when she tells him as much and delivers a light kiss to her cheek along with a murmured, "Another token then. Thank you."

And before Raven can react, he gives her another smile and disappears down the hall to his own room, leaving her with her tea, the faint smell of whiskey and gel, and an even more pressing need to meditate.

********

**Endnotes:** Reviews/thoughts/comments shall be doted on. Concrit is always appreciated as an ever-developing writer; flames on my pairing of choice will be laughed at, especially since you've read all the way through to here already.

Thank you everyone who reviewed on the last chapter, and many many bonus points to those who did recognize the bar's name. Yay, shared fandoms!


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